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In the March 19th, 2012 issue of the New Yorker magazine, as part of a full-page advertisement for MSNBC, there is a quote from Rachel Maddow that I couldn’t agree with more. She says:

“Social security isn’t a Ponzi scheme. It’s not bankrupting us. It’s not an outrage. It is working.”

Rachel Maddow is absolutely right. In one of several attempts to compare the costs, benefits, and solvency of social security to public sector pensions, in the post from November 2011 entitled “Merge Social Security and Public Sector Pensions,” I concluded the following:

“If one strips away the reliance on investment returns and compares social security to public sector pensions based on payroll withholding from current worker’s providing 100% of the funds required to make current payments to retirees, it quickly becomes obvious that public sector pensions are completely unsustainable, whereas social security can be rendered permanently solvent with relatively minor tinkering.”

The reason for this is simple enough: Social security, on average, collects about 12.5% of someone’s annual earnings for about 40 years, then when that someone retires in their mid-sixties, it pays back about 33% of those earnings for about 15 years. Public sector pensions, by contrast, on average collect not quite 20% of a government worker’s annual earnings for about 30 years, then when that government worker retires in their mid-fifties, it pays back about 75% of those earnings for about 25 years. Do the math.

Compared to public sector pensions, along with having far more […] Read More

The challenge of providing retirement security to all citizens is the broader issue behind the debate over what level of public sector pension benefits are both equitable and financially sustainable. California Senator Kevin De Leon’s proposed legislation, SB 1234, will hopefully further this debate.

Plenty of commentators have already weighed in with sobering missives on the many problems with DeLeon’s bill. You can read them in the San Bernardino Press Enterprise, the Pleasanton Weekly, CalWatchdog, CalWhine, and elsewhere. But when DeLeon says his bill “is designed to supplement Social Security retirement benefits,” he is on to something bigger than he may realize.

The goal of taxpayer funded retirement security, whether it is for a retired government worker or a retired private sector worker living on social security, is not to support an affluent lifestyle. A taxpayer funded retirement pension should be a modest amount, better than social security – but not some huge amount that enables an affluent lifestyle. To have an affluent lifestyle in retirement, people should expect to save […] Read More